Little Victories
by enigma731
Summary: A collection of canon vignettes.
1. Jealousy

TITLE: Little Victories (1/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

NOTES: So, apparently a lot of you still want me to write Chase/Cam fic. And I still want to write it, too. The only problem is that I'm in grad school now, so I can't really promise enough consistency for a multichapter fic. Instead, I thought I might do a fun little drabble collection. I'm taking the table from the 25 Fluffy Fics challenge that went around LJ a few years ago – You can google if you want to see the whole thing, but I'm going to do as much of it as I can, not in order. My plan right now is to have all of these set in canon, sort of as little missing scenes. We'll see where it goes.

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><p>17. Jealousy<p>

"What is up with you?" Cameron asks for the third time, as the crowd from airport security thins at last, and Chase veers off toward their appointed gate. It feels oddly intimate, being here with him, another milestone in their relationship, context foreign.

He has been strangely silent since leaving her parents' house, not shutting her out, exactly, but distant nonetheless.

"Nothing," Chase answers tersely, cutting confidently through the waiting crowd gathered at the gate, finally stopping when he reaches the bank of seats nearest the window facing the tarmac. "This okay?" Not waiting for a response, he offers a hand to take her bag.

Cameron hands it to him, then pauses, crossing her arms. "It's not nothing. You're being really—"

"What?" Chase interrupts. "I'm being fine. I _am_ fine."

"You're being weird," she amends. "You can tell me what's wrong, you know."

"Nothing is wrong," Chase insists, a note of exasperation slipping into his tone. "I had a very nice Thanksgiving. Thank you for inviting me."

"Then why did you check out the minute we walked out the door?" Cameron narrows her eyes. "Because seriously, you're acting like your head is already back in Princeton."

"Sorry," Chase hedges, still avoiding the actual question. He fumbles in his carry-on bag, but doesn't take anything out, a distraction for his hands.

Cameron sits heavily beside him, bringing her gaze back level with his. "You can tell me. I want you to tell me."

He looks away, down into his bag again. "It's just—your family."

"What?"

Chase smiles, a bit sheepishly. "It's almost like—something out of a movie. Everyone happy and excited to see one another. You've had that all your life. My family never knew how to do a holiday without someone practically losing an eye."

"And you're—jealous of that?" she asks, a bit incredulous, but the pieces are rapidly falling into place.

There is nothing she can say to change that, she realizes. It will not help to tell him about the year when her parents had considered divorce, or how they'd looked at her when she'd decided to marry a stranger at the age of twenty-one. How they'd seen her as a spurious martyr, seeking pain in exchange for attention. How it had been years before she'd gone home again, after that. None of these things will lessen his wish for the elusive reality he thinks he's glimpsed this weekend.

"Babe." Cameron lays a hand on his arm, a bit hesitantly. "We'll make our own memories."

Chase looks up sharply, and his expression tells her that for the moment, it is enough. She has dared to mention their future.


	2. Blankets

TITLE: Little Victories (2/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>9. Blankets<p>

Sometimes she dreams of him dying. It is never clear why. His skin simply pales, veins standing out stark blue as his body seems to melt away, until he is nothing but an emaciated shell, bones as delicate and brittle as a sparrow's wing. It ends, always, in the hospital, her sitting at his bedside, tubes and wires curled around him like creeping graveyard vines, the cheap white blanket already a shroud.

And the all-encompassing certainty that _this_ is the end, that nothing good in her life will ever be allowed to last.

The first time it happens is the night after he proposes, and Cameron wakes gasping in his bedroom, sweat-drenched comforter tangled alarmingly around her legs.

"Bad dream?" Chase asks groggily a moment later, switching on the light. His cheeks are slightly flushed with sleep, his hair sticking up in a way that tempts her to run her fingers through it.

But the words won't come; this night ought to be pure joy for both of them, and the fact that she is haunted still by her past feels like a betrayal.

"It's okay, you know," he says quietly, catching her hand and running the pad of his thumb over the band of her ring.

"What is?" Cameron laces their fingers, pulling his hand into her lap as she sits up against the headboard.

"It's okay to be anxious," he amends. "I know you're going to be. It's just—part of who you are. And I love you."

Cameron bites her lip, still unable to truly respond, to admit that her fears now stem not from the imminent beginning of their marriage, but from its inevitable end.

Taking her silence as acceptance, Chase leans over to kiss her. His pulse beats fast and strong as her fingers brush against his neck.


	3. Breakfast

TITLE: Little Victories (3/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>7. Breakfast<p>

The first time Chase wakes and finds her still asleep in his bed, he is surprised. He has grown accustomed to Cameron maintaining her distance—after the fact, at least. After he has seen all of her walls come down, secrets and scars exposed, vulnerable. It is then that she always seems to remember herself, remember the reasons she has locked her heart away for so long, and retreat as quickly as possible back to a safe distance.

But this time is different. This time he has fallen asleep with his nose buried in her hair, and woken to see the morning sunlight catching the delicate sweat-dampened curls at the nape of her neck. For a moment he almost forgets the anxious exhaustion of the past few days, the shock and humiliation and disorientation of being fired, of finding himself without anywhere in particular to be this morning.

Suddenly he finds himself desperate to make her stay. She has not truly made any promises, he knows, though he has allowed himself to believe her when she's said that things will be different now. Chase thinks about coffee, and possibly pancakes, but nothing he might be able to concoct in his tiny kitchen seems capable of communicating how badly he needs her to just _be here_.

And then he thinks of another time, another kitchen, another meal which was actually more, when he'd realized that he would never be enough to convince his mother not only to eat, but to _live_.

All intentions of breakfast forgotten, Chase sinks shakily back into the sheets, overwhelmed by the knowledge that all he can do is enjoy this moment, because he is utterly powerless to make it last.


	4. Fluff

TITLE: Little Victories (4/25)  
>AUTHOR: enigma731<br>PAIRING: Chase/Cameron  
>RATING: T<br>SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

NOTE: Thank you to Vitawash for this Writer's Choice prompt!

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><p>24. Fluff (Writer's Choice)<p>

Everything is ruined.

Chase is certain of this fact as he finishes his last case in surgery, changes distractedly back into his street clothes, drives home without seeing the cars, all of the narrow-misses surrounding him. Instead he sees only the boundlessness of his own jealousy, the blinding doubts which have led him to disaster this day.

As he unlocks the door, he is fully expecting to find a message from Cameron, dealing the final blow, or perhaps simply silence, most telling of all. When he finds her sitting on his living room couch, all he can think is that she has decided to end things in person. It is the first time she's used the spare key he's given her, and the sickening irony is not lost on him. They'd planned on dinner tonight, but after the mess he's made, that seems out of the question.

"Food should be here in a few minutes," says Cameron, not giving him the opportunity to speak first. "You wanted Chinese, right?"

"Yeah, but-"

"And I remembered to get you extra rice," she interrupts.

"Is this a joke?" asks Chase, feeling the tension shift into the beginnings of a headache, throbbing behind his eyes.

"Yes," says Cameron. "I ordered dinner because I'm planning to poison you." She rolls her eyes, finally looking at him. "Are you going to sit down?"

Swallowing, Chase sits, perched on the edge of the couch so that balancing is an effort.  
>"What are you doing?"<p>

She glances at the television, and for the first time he notices that it is turned on, the evening news a constant drone of catastrophe in the background of their conversation. "Trying to have dinner with you."

"Why are you doing this? Why aren't you breaking up with me?"

Cameron turns toward him on the couch, pulling a throw pillow into her lap and fingering the edge of it slowly. The seam is becoming worn, a wisp of white stuffing just beginning to poke out. "And why would I do that?"

"Because-I embarrassed you," Chase stammers, struggling to articulate his own mistakes. "I accused you-"

"Of sleeping with House," she finishes. "You can be a real immature ass sometimes."

"I-I know," says Chase. "I'm sorry. But-you're not breaking up with me? Why?"

Cameron shrugs. "Why would I?"

"Because I'm an immature ass..."

"You are," Cameron agrees. "Sometimes. But don't you think I knew that before-what I was getting into?"

Chase simply stares at her, still unable to trust the fact that she might be less angry with him than he is with himself.

"You know, it is possible for us to fight and not break up, right?" Cameron smiles, and it is surprisingly gentle. "But if you want me to punish you..."

"I probably deserve it." Chase swallows, feeling a surprisingly immense sense of relief at the realization that they have survived their first true argument.

"Well, if it'll make you feel better." Cameron's smile widens, and then she is swinging the pillow at him before he has a chance to react, still lost in thought.

"Hey!" he yelps, surprised when it connects solidly with his shoulder. He's known her threat of punishment was mostly a joke, but it's the first time he has seen anything so outright silly from her, especially in the face of so much tension.

Cameron laughs. "Well if you aren't going to fight back..."

She lifts the pillow for another blow, but this time Chase ducks, grabbing his own pillow and swinging it to connect soundly with hers. Letting go with one hand, she snatches up the third pillow and clobbers him over the head with it.

"Hey!" Chase repeats, already breathless with laughter. "You fight dirty."

Cameron lifts the pillow to strike again, and Chase reaches out to catch it, not letting go when she attempts to pull it away. She simply tugs harder, stubbornly refusing to give up her weapon, until the old threadbare seam gives way, showering them both in fluffy white stuffing. Cameron lets go at last, laughing to the point of tears.

"You killed my pillow," says Chase, when he's finally managed to catch his breath enough to speak.

"Sorry," says Cameron. "Maybe that was my real plan to punish you."

"I'm sorry too," says Chase, but he means it.

"I know," she answers, softly. "I know it sucks to be scared."

She leans in to kiss him, bits of delicate white caught in her hair like snowflakes.


	5. Nightmare

TITLE: Little Victories (5/25)  
>AUTHOR: enigma731<br>PAIRING: Chase/Cameron  
>RATING: T<br>SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>13. Nightmare<p>

Cameron has no idea why she does it, even many years after the fact.

She grapples for her phone on the nightstand the moment she wakes, hands shaking badly, sheets hopelessly tangled and clinging to her body like restraints. It seems instinct to switch the phone on, to see the time and make some light in the darkness of her bedroom which suddenly feels oppressive.

Chase's name appears on the screen as she fumbles with the buttons; he's called twice tonight, which seems odd considering his abrupt disappearance the moment the disciplinary hearing ended. She'd ignored his calls then, afraid of what might happen if she hears the pain of suspension, of his father's death in his voice. But suddenly she finds herself unconcerned about his problems, desperate for a renewed tether to this reality in which her world is still mostly whole.

Chase answers after the third ring, clearly disturbed from sleep. "'s happening?"

Cameron remains silent, unable to explain why she has called, even in her own mind.

"Cameron?" Another moment passes before he exhales heavily, clearly concerned. "Are you okay?"

"Nothing," says Cameron, feeling disoriented by the sound of her own voice. "Nothing's happening."

"Right," says Chase, clearly disbelieving. "So you were just returning my call at 3 am to tell me that you're absolutely fine."

"No!" Cameron bites her lip, realizing in a rush what she's said. "I wasn't returning—It was just a mistake."

"I'm coming over there," says Chase, and for a moment she can hear the sounds of him moving around his bedroom.

"No," she repeats, more sharply this time. "Don't!"

But he has already hung up the phone, her suddenly-frantic protestation meeting only silence, bouncing back off the walls to redouble her own anxiety. The apartment feels eerily still around her as she gets out of bed, finds a threadbare sweatshirt that she's had since medical school, and pulls it over her head. There is little comfort in the softness surrounding her; she cannot shake the thought that her body may already be silently destroying itself, here in the stillness of the night. Wandering into the bathroom, she splashes water on her face, jarred by the unexpected chill.

And then Chase is there at the door, his tentative knock once more a reminder that the world outside is still in motion. He's forgotten his heavy coat, wearing only his familiar thin leather jacket, and he looks more alone than she has ever seen him, haunted by the past few days in his own prison of thoughts. He has been a void in her life since the hearing, thinks Cameron, and only now does she become aware that she has missed him.

"I told you I'm fine," she says preemptively, when he does not speak.

"I know," says Chase, and there is an odd softness in his voice that catches all of her warning flags.

"Then why are you here?" Cameron presses, though the moment she hears the true harshness of her own words, she feels a stir of anxiety over the thought that he could simply give in and leave. And she wants him here, she realizes, with a fresh wave of apprehension. She simply needs him to be convinced of the contrary.

"I know what you said," Chase repeats, very gently. "That doesn't mean I believe you."

This time she says nothing, and he steps past her carefully, shutting the door on the cold hallway. It ought to feel like an intrusion, Cameron thinks, yet there is something oddly comfortable about this, discovering that he fits into her life in unexpected ways. She simply stands back and watches as he shrugs out of his jacket, walks over to the couch and sits on it tentatively.

"What are you doing?" she asks after a moment.

"Sitting," he answers. "Waiting." Then, after a pause, "Maybe I wanted a distraction too."

Cameron crosses the living room on bare feet and sits, legs tucked up into the softness of the couch. "It's-weird. Being at work without you there."

Chase says nothing in reply, something in his face tightening, almost imperceptibly.  
>"What have you been doing?" she asks, suddenly unable to resist the curiosity. "At home, I mean. Since-the suspension." Cameron measures other people by their means of coping, but he remains a mystery, inscrutable as the predawn darkness outside of her windows.<p>

"What did you dream about?" he counters instead, an obvious challenge.

He has intended for this to catch her off guard, and it does.

"You called me in the middle of the night," says Chase, and there is a ruthless certainty in his voice now, reminding her of House on the verge of a diagnosis. "If it was about work, you'd have told me as quickly as possible, because you'd just be interested in getting my opinion and then getting me off the phone. You don't want to talk to me, and you didn't want to see me, so you didn't call because you wanted to spend time with me. The antivirals you're taking cause vivid dreams and anxiety. As if you needed more help feeling anxious, between House and the number you do on your own head. You called because you woke up in a panic, and I was a convenient distraction."

Cameron bites her lip, feeling utterly disarmed, laid bare before him without any sense of trust. She does not know him, she realizes, not in any sort of way that truly matters. He holds all the power in this moment; he could destroy her with this if he chooses.

"It's okay," he whispers, instead. "We don't have to talk about it. But don't ask me for anything you're not ready to give."

Cameron draws in a slow breath, willing herself to find some semblance of calm. He has shaken her more deeply even than the dream, lurking now at the periphery of her thoughts, a reminder that things are not yet all right. "I could-make tea, or something. Turn on some infomercials."

Chase snorts, but instead he reaches for her hands, and she finds herself meeting him halfway. He is shaking ever so slightly, and for a long while Cameron simply holds on, allowing herself to be alone with him and the uncertain future.


	6. Flowers

TITLE: Little Victories (6/25)  
>AUTHOR: enigma731<br>PAIRING: Chase/Cameron  
>RATING: T<br>SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>19. Flowers<p>

The thing about Chase is that being with him never gets boring.

Cameron has had an image of him in her mind from the moment they met, certain she's understood him, though he constantly proves her wrong.

At first she'd lumped him in with the men who'd gotten on her last nerve in medical school: rich, arrogant, good-looking and entitled. But he'd surprised her in his tenderness with a frightened patient, his willingness to stay and cover extra ICU shifts on weekends and holidays. His awkward hesitance with her when she'd chosen to play Foreman's game.

Later, she'd seen him as a means to an end, a distraction from her fear of lasting connections, but safe an unexciting.

After months of spontaneous indiscretion, moments stolen in the sleep lab, the janitor's closet, and even one time on House's desk, she'd worried that a real relationship might kill the unexpected spark they'd found in these ephemeral instants, might leave them both bitter and disappointed.

But he defies her expectations once more, this time with his ability to read her fears. His presence in her life has become the first constant she's allowed herself to have in nearly a decade, at least besides the work she's always used to bury her uncertainty.

When they have been together for eight months, and Valentine's rolls around again, he surprises her with flowers on the nightstand when she gets home from the late shift in the ER.

_Still not stolen,_ says the tag. _But we can pretend, if you'd like._

Chase ties one of her silk scarves over her eyes as he kisses her, the rest of the world falling away. Tangling her fingers in his hair, Cameron sinks back against the bed and allows herself to become lost in him.


	7. Hurt

TITLE: Little Victories (7/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>12. Hurt<p>

"You're a masochist," says Chase, the moment she arrives at his apartment.

"Wow. I'm glad you had a good day too," Cameron answers, piqued. Pushing past him, she peels off her jacket and drapes it over the back of one of his kitchen chairs. A mere few weeks in his space have made her comfortable here, confident in her effects on him.

"I'm serious," Chase presses, following her. "You went to see House in surgery today. And don't say you didn't. My staff saw you."

"I was curious," says Cameron, feeling her frustration rise. She knows that he has already done the same, but it is clear that he measures his own intentions by a different standard.

"About what? We've seen him do surgery a hundred times."

Cameron shrugs. "I wanted to see the new team. What's so masochistic about that? I know you're curious about them too."

"I'm curious because I want to see how his latest game blows up," says Chase. "You're curious because you want to be in their place. You still want to work for him. You're like an alcoholic going to a bar. Sniffing around what you can't have."

For a moment Cameron is stunned into silence. It is clear that Chase is both terribly upset, and being entirely honest about why. Both of these things, she thinks, are a rarity.

"Even if that's true, why do you care? Neither of us is leaving Princeton anytime soon. And I'm with you. I want to be _with you_."

The truth is that she still has not worked out her own complicated tangle of emotions regarding House and her old position on the team, but she knows without question that she does not want to lose her relationship with Chase.

He hesitates for a moment, looking suddenly uncertain about this argument he's begun. "Sometimes I just—worry," says Chase, gaze fixed on the folds of her jacket. "House hurts you again and again, and yet you always go running back to him. If—If I don't hurt you, will you still want to be with me?"

"I want to be happy," Cameron breathes, shaken by this image she's somehow given him. Sometimes it is still difficult to believe, even in her own mind. "I want _us_ to be happy."

Chase looks at her for a long moment, then nods. When he wraps his arms around her, she can feel that he is shaking. For the first time, she realizes how profoundly lost he has become in this thing between them. She cannot yet allow herself to acknowledge it as love.

Cameron fists her hands in the fabric of his shirt and holds on, unable to find words to express how deeply she hopes that _hurt_ will never come from him.


	8. Dinner

TITLE: Little Victories (8/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>8. Dinner<p>

The storm blows up out of nowhere. It is an unbearably hot August day, shimmering heat waves rising from the scorching pavement like echoes.

Chase sees the dark clouds gathering from the windows of his new office as he finishes the day's dictations. Working in surgery is oddly isolating, moving between the hushed urgency of the operating room and the utter silence of solitary paperwork.

He is accustomed to discussion, argument, and the ever-present wild card that is House. This afternoon the clouds feel oppressive, and he finds himself rushing to finish so he can leave the hospital.

He has told Cameron to plan on dinner at a restaurant, the sort of official date which has only just become a possibility with her. She has the next two days off, having just finished a run of night shifts in the ER. It seems odd, being at the hospital without her there, as though he has lost a part of himself, more than just a job.

There is already thunder on the horizon when he finally leaves the lobby of the hospital, the sharp smell of ozone in the air sending him rushing to his car. It feels as though the storm might come at any moment and it does, as he is waiting at the light to turn into traffic.

The rain comes down like a wall of water, nearly blinding as Chase inches onto the road. Lightning slices through the deluge directly overhead, thunder following immediately. It reminds him of storms at home as a child, the way he'd hidden in his bed and thought about the apocalypse, at times half-hoping the world might be at its end, but unsure whether the prospect of eternity was any less terrifying than his current misery.

It feels like an act of faith, simply continuing to drive in the deluge, the road ahead completely obscured, save for the watery headlights of the car directly in front of his. Chase thinks that perhaps he ought to simply find a place to pull over and wait for the worst to pass. But work has already kept him at the hospital for most of dinner time, and the idea of giving up on the evening entirely is utterly unacceptable.

Instead he parks three blocks up from Cameron's apartment and makes a run for it. Immediately he recognizes his mistake; the rain feels like a barrage of tiny warm missiles against his skin, and he is soaked to the bone before he's taken more than a few steps.

When Cameron opens her door, she simply stares at him for a moment. Chase feels the weighty burden of failure in her gaze; of course there is no way they will be going out now, and he feels a fool for having held on so stubbornly to hope.

"I'm sorry," he offers, not giving her a chance to speak. "I'm sorry about dinner. I had reservations but then we got a trauma call and—I should have called you. I'm sorry."

"Shut up," says Cameron. Pulling the door closed behind her, she steps out into the downpour, newly-blonde hair curling around her face as she kisses him deeply.

Much later, they sit on the floor of her living room and eat Chinese food out of cardboard containers. Outside, the rain cleanses the earth, and it feels as though the world is being born anew.


	9. Candles

TITLE: Little Victories (9/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

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><p>6. Candles<p>

She finds out about Chase's birthday while reading House's mail. Two years of knowing them both have taught her not to be surprised either that House has requested an updated background check on Chase, or that Chase has avoided telling anyone about the occasion.

Cameron tells herself that ordinarily she would not feel compelled to do anything, or at least not anything so personal, at least not for Chase. But he has seemed oddly quiet and distant since returning from his suspension, since having the truth of his father's death laid bare for the hospital to see.

And suddenly she finds that she misses the easy sense of companionship they once had, an almost-friendship she realizes now that she has taken for granted.

Chase has started taking long lunches alone in the cafeteria, and she knows exactly where she will find him, at the table in the far corner, avoiding everyone's gaze. Cameron doesn't wait for his acknowledgement, simply pulls out the chair across from his and sits, placing a single cupcake on the table top and carefully lighting the candle in the middle of it. Chase stares at it as if it might explode.

"What are you doing?" he asks, finally looking up at her.

"I know it's your birthday," she answers, having expected both confusion and resistance from him. "Happy birthday."

Chase frowns. "Did House send you?"

Cameron rolls her eyes. "Yes. He's trying to poison you, so I thought it would be fun to play along."

He takes a breath, watching the candle burn for a long moment. "Sorry. But—why are you doing this?"

"Because you're my friend," she answers, though she is too aware that those words feel strange on her lips. "Or at least—I think you used to be. I want us to be friends."

"Why?" Chase presses, still looking tense.

"Have a drink with me tonight," she answers instead, surprising herself. "I'll buy."

Chase studies her for a few breaths, the look in his eyes saying that he is unsure whether she is truly inviting him for drinks, or something more. Cameron finds that she is not sure either.

"Okay," he says at last, relaxing some.

Cameron smiles, feeling as though this is some sort of victory. "Good. Now blow out your candle and make a wish. Or else I'll have to sing."


	10. Parting

TITLE: Little Victories (10/25)

AUTHOR: enigma731

PAIRING: Chase/Cameron

RATING: T

SUMMARY: A collection of canon vignettes.

NOTE: I'm sorry I've been so absent this summer. I'm currently on a project that requires me to be at work about 12 hours a day, and then come home and try to get all my coursework done late at night. I'm still working on a more extensive post-finale fic, and Exit Wounds, but right now I only get a few minutes here and there to write. Please bear with me and trust that I'm doing the best I can with my stories, given my current schedule.

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><p>22. Parting<p>

The first thing Chase notices is the thin gold band on her ring finger. He has known that Cameron is married again, even sent her a half-hearted congratulations card when it happened. But the ring makes it real somehow, standing out like a beacon from the moment he picks her up at the airport through the last of the stiff, somber speeches at the memorial service. Evidence of her new-found happiness somehow eclipses the salience of House's death.

After the service there is a reception, and they all stand around awkwardly, struggling to find an appropriately neutral topic of conversation. She will be leaving in the morning, Chase knows, and finds himself irrationally wishing for a way to stretch time.

"Don't you think it's a little unbelievable how many people came?" asks Cameron, abandoning pretense. "I mean, for House."

"You came," says Foreman, pointedly, and Chase thinks then of the irony. She was willing to be here for death, but not to give another chance to their life together.

"He always said I was a masochist," she answers, smiling thinly.

"Let's go to the bar," Chase says abruptly. Cameron and Foreman give him looks of incredulity. "Seriously. Don't you think House would've wanted drinking at his funeral? All this formality would bore him."

Foreman snorts at that, then nods.

As they make their way out into the unseasonably warm day, Chase finds his gaze caught on the ring once more, picking up the afternoon sunlight. It ought to feel like a finality, he thinks, a conclusion, at last, to her chapter in his life.

And yet House's voice still lingers in his head, drawn to the inconsistencies. The ring sees ill-suited to her personality. She has always hated to wear gold jewelry, but evidently does not trust her new husband enough to tell him of his mistake. It seems significant, also, that he and the baby are not with her now.

Walking beside her into the familiar noise of the bar, Chase thinks that he knows Cameron too well to accept this as a true ending.


End file.
